Harry paused as he tried to remember the opening line of the next chapter.
By now, you will be asking yourself if I feared for my own life. No, because I was like wallpaper: I simply blended into the background, so no one ever noticed me. Very few of Stalin’s inner circle even knew my name. No one ever sought my opinion on anything, let alone my support. I was an apparatchik, a junior civil servant of no significance, and had I been replaced by a different colored wallpaper, I would have been forgotten within the hour.
I had been working at the Kremlin for just over a year when I first thought about writing a memoir of the man no one spoke of unless it was in reverential tones—even behind his back. But it was another year before I summoned up the courage to write the first page. Three years later, as my confidence grew, whenever I returned to my little flat each evening I would write a page, perhaps two, about what had taken place that day. And before going to bed, like an actor, I would learn the newly minted script off by heart, and then destroy it.
So frightened was I of being caught that Yelena would sit by the window whenever I was writing, just in case anyone paid an unexpected visit. If that had happened, I was ready to throw the page I was working on into the fire. But no one ever did visit, because no one considered me a threat to anything or anybody.
“Please fasten your seat belts, as we will be landing in Stockholm in a few minutes’ time.”
“Can I stay on the plane?” asked Harry.
“I’m afraid not, sir, but we have a first-class lounge where they serve breakfast, and where I’m sure you’ll find an endless supply of paper.”
Harry was the first off the plane and within minutes had settled down at a table in the first-class lounge with a black coffee, several varieties of biscuits, and reams of typing paper. He must have been the only passenger who was delighted to learn that the flight had been delayed because of a mechanical fault.
Yakov Bulgukov, the Mayor of Romanovskaya, faced a potentially dangerous situation when he decided to build a massive image of Stalin, twice life-size, using convicts from a nearby prison to build the statue, which would be erected on the banks of the Volga-Don Canal. The mayor was horrified when he turned up for work each morning to find his leader’s head covered in bird droppings. Bulgukov came up with a drastic solution. He ordered that a constant electric current should be run through the statue’s head. A junior official was given the job of removing the little corpses every morning before the sun rose.
Harry gathered his thoughts before he began the fourth chapter.
Stalin had a hand-picked cadre of security guards led by General Nikolai Sidorovich Vlasik, whom he trusted with his life. He needed to, because he’d made so many enemies during the purges, when he’d eliminated anyone and everyone he considered to be a possible rival, at that time or in the future. I lost count of how many people were in favor one day and disappeared the next. If a member of his inner circle so much as hinted that someone was plotting against him, that person was never seen or heard of again. Stalin didn’t believe in early retirement or a pension plan. He once told me that if you kill one person, you’re a murderer; if you kill thousands, it becomes a mere statistic.
Stalin boasted that his personal security protection was in a different class to anything the president of the United States was getting from the American Secret Service, and that wasn’t hard to believe. When he left the Kremlin for his dacha each evening, and when he returned to the Kremlin the following morning, Vlasik was always by his side ready to take an assassin’s bullet, although the nine-kilometer route was permanently patrolled by three thousand armed agents, and his bulletproof Zil limousine rarely traveled at less than eighty miles an hour.
Harry was on page 79 of the manuscript when all passengers on the flight to London were requested to reboard the plane, by which time Stalin saw himself as something of a cross between Henry VIII and Catherine the Great. Harry walked up to the check-in counter.
“Would it be possible to change my flight to a later one?”
“Yes, of course, sir. We have one going via Amsterdam in two hours’ time, but I’m afraid there’s no connecting flight to London for another four hours.”
“Perfect.”
46
GILES READ William Warwick’s signed confession on the front page of the Times the following morning and couldn’t stop laughing.
How could they have failed to notice that it wasn’t Harry’s signature? He could only assume that the Russians were in such a hurry to get the confession into the hands of the international press before he arrived back in England that they’d made a cock-up. It had happened often enough in the Foreign Office when Giles was a minister, but it rarely got beyond the press department. Mind you, when Churchill was visiting America just after the war he asked the embassy to set up a meeting with the distinguished philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and ended up having tea with Irving Berlin.
Photographs of Harry dominated most of the morning papers, while leaders and opinion pieces about the popular author and his long-standing battle to have Anatoly Babakov released from prison filled many column inches on the inside pages.
The cartoonists had a field day, depicting Harry as either George slaying the dragon or David felling Goliath. But Giles’s favorite was one in the Daily Express of Harry fencing with a pen against a bear with a broken sword. The caption read: Mightier than the Sword.
Giles was still laughing when he read William Warwick’s confession for a second time. He assumed heads would be rolling, perhaps literally, in Russia.
“What’s so funny?” asked Emma when she joined him for breakfast, still looking as if she could have done with a good night’s sleep.
“Harry’s done more to embarrass the Russians in one day than the Foreign Office could manage in a year. And there’s even better news. Just look at the Telegraph’s headline.” He held the paper up so she could read it.
WILLIAM WARWICK ADMITS TO BEING A SPY.
“It’s not a laughing matter,” said Emma, pushing the papers aside. “If he’d still been in Russia when the first editions came out it would have been a completely different headline.”
“Well, at least look on the bright side.”
“There’s a bright side?”
“There most certainly is. Up until now, everyone’s been asking why Harry wasn’t in court supporting you. Well, now they all know, which is bound to make an impression on the jury.”
“Except that Virginia was brilliant in the witness box. Far more convincing than I was.”
“But I suspect the jury will have seen through her by now.”
“Just in case you’ve forgotten, it took you a little longer.”
Giles looked suitably chastened.
“I’ve just come off the phone with him,” said Emma. “He’s been held up in Stockholm. He seemed preoccupied and didn’t say a great deal. He told me he’s not expecting to land at Heathrow until around five this afternoon.”
“Did he get his hands on Babakov’s book?” asked Giles.
“His money ran out before I had time to ask him,” said Emma as she poured herself some coffee. “In any case, I was more interested in trying to find out why it had taken him almost a week to do a journey that most other people manage in under four hours.”
“And what was his explanation?”
“Didn’t have one. Said he’d tell me everything as soon as he got home.” Emma took a sip of her coffee before adding, “There’s something he’s not telling me, that hasn’t made the front pages.”
“I bet it has something to do with Babakov’s book.”
“Damn that book,” said Emma. “What possessed him to take such a risk when he’d already been threatened with a jail sentence?”
“Don’t forget this is the same man who took on a German division armed only with a pistol, a jeep, and an Irish corporal.”
“And he was lucky to survive that as well.”
“You knew what kind of man he was long before y
ou married him. For better or worse…” Giles said, taking his sister’s hand.
“But does he begin to understand what he’s put his family through during the last week, and just how lucky he is to have been put on a plane back to England rather than on a train heading for Siberia along with his friend Babakov?”
“I suspect there’s a part of him that will have wanted to be on that train with Babakov,” said Giles quietly. “That’s why we both admire him so much.”
“I’ll never let him go abroad again,” said Emma with feeling.
“Well, as long as he only heads west, it should still be all right,” said Giles, trying to lighten the mood.
Emma bowed her head, and suddenly burst into tears. “You don’t realize just how much you love someone until you think you might never see them again.”
“I know how you feel,” said Giles.
* * *
During the war, Harry had once stayed awake for thirty-six hours, but he was a lot younger then.
One of the many subjects no one ever dared to raise with Stalin was the role he played during the siege of Moscow, when the outcome of the Second World War still hung in the balance. Did he, like most of the government ministers and their officials, beat a hasty retreat to Kuibyshev on the Volga, or did he, as he claimed, refuse to leave the capital and remain in the Kremlin, personally organizing the defense of the city? His version became legend, part of the official Soviet history, although several people saw him on the platform moments before the train departed for Kuibyshev, and there are no reliable reports of anyone seeing him in Moscow again until the Russian army had driven the enemy from the gates of the city. Few of those who expressed any doubts about Stalin’s version lived to tell the tale.
With a ballpoint pen in one hand, and a slice of Edam cheese in the other, he carried on writing, page after page. He could hear Jessica remonstrating with him. How can you sit in an airport lounge writing someone else’s book, when you’re just a taxi ride away from the finest collection of Rembrandts, Vermeers, Steens, and De Wittes in the world? Not a day went by when he didn’t think of Jessica. He just hoped she’d understand why he had to temporarily replace Rembrandt with Babakov. Harry paused again to gather his thoughts.
Stalin always claimed that on the day of Nadya’s funeral, he walked behind the coffin. In fact, he only did so for a few minutes, because of an abiding fear of being assassinated. When the cortege reached the first inhabited buildings in Manege Square, he disappeared into the back of a car, while his brother-in-law Alyosha Svanidze, also a short, stocky man with a thick black moustache, took his place. Svanidze wore Stalin’s great coat so the crowd would assume he must be the grieving widower.
“Would all passengers…”
* * *
Mrs. Justice Lane released everyone from court number fourteen at four o’clock that afternoon, but not until she was convinced that the jury wouldn’t be able to reach a verdict that evening.
“I’m off to Heathrow,” said Emma, looking at her watch.
“With a bit of luck I’ll be just in time to meet Harry off the plane.”
“Would you like us to come with you?” asked Giles.
“Certainly not. I want him all to myself for the first few hours, but I’ll bring him back to Smith Square this evening, and we can all have dinner together.”
Taxi drivers always smile when a fare says Heathrow. Emma climbed into the back of the cab, confident she could be at the airport before the plane landed.
The first thing she did on entering the terminal building was to check the arrivals board. Little numbers and letters flicked over every few moments, supplying the latest information for each flight. The board indicated that passengers arriving from Amsterdam on BOAC 786 were now in baggage reclaim. But then she remembered that Harry had only taken a small overnight bag, as he hadn’t planned to be in Leningrad for more than a few hours, one night at the most. In any case, he was always among the first off the plane as he liked to be speeding down the motorway on his way back to Bristol before the last passengers had cleared customs. Made him feel he’d stolen time.
Could she have missed him, she wondered, as several passengers passed her, with bags displaying Amsterdam luggage tags. She was about to go in search of a telephone and call Giles when Harry finally appeared.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, throwing his arms around her. “I had no idea you’d be waiting for me. I thought you’d still be in court.”
“The judge let us go at four because it didn’t look as if the jury were going to reach a verdict today.”
Harry released her, and said, “Can I make the strangest request?”
“Anything, my darling.”
“Could we book into an airport hotel for a couple of hours?”
“We haven’t done that for some time,” said Emma, grinning.
“I’ll explain why later,” said Harry. He didn’t speak again until he’d signed the hotel register and they’d checked into their room.
Emma lay on the bed, watching as Harry sat at a little desk by the window, writing as if his life depended on it. She wasn’t allowed to speak, turn on the television, or even order room service, so, in desperation, she picked up the first chapter of what she assumed must be the latest William Warwick novel.
She was hooked from the first sentence. When Harry finally put down his pen, three and a half hours later, and slumped onto the bed beside her, all she said was, “Don’t say a word, just hand me the next chapter.”
Whenever I was required at the dacha (not that often), I always ate in the kitchen. A real treat, because Stalin’s chef, Spiridon Ivanovich Putin, would give me and the three tasters exactly the same food as was being served to Stalin and his guests in the dining room. That should hardly come as a surprise. The three tasters were just another example of Stalin’s paranoia, and his belief that someone must be trying to poison him. They would sit silently at the kitchen table, never opening their mouths except to eat. Chef Putin’s conversation was also limited, as he assumed that anyone who entered his domain—kitchen staff, waiters, guards, tasters—was almost certainly a spy, me included. When he did speak, which was never before the meal had been cleared away and the last guest had left the dining room, it would only ever be about his family, of whom he was inordinately proud, particularly his most recent grandson, Vladimir.
Once the guests had all departed, Stalin would retreat to his study and read until the early hours. A portrait of Lenin hung above his desk, a lamp illuminating his face. He loved reading Russian novels, often scribbling comments in the margins. If he couldn’t get to sleep he would slip out into the garden, prune his roses, and admire the peacocks that wandered through the grounds.
When he finally returned to the house, he didn’t decide which room he would sleep in until the last moment, unable to shake off past memories of being a young revolutionary, always on the move, never certain where he was going to rest. He would then grab a few hours’ sleep on a sofa, the door locked and his guards outside, who would never unlock the door until he called. Stalin rarely rose before midday, when, after a light lunch, no drink, he would be driven from his dacha to the Kremlin in a convoy, but never in the same car. When he arrived, he immediately set to work with his six secretaries. I never once saw him yawn.
Emma turned the page, while Harry fell into a deep sleep.
When he woke just after midnight, she had reached chapter twelve (the opening paragraph of which was on the back of a first-class menu). She gathered up several sheets of paper and put them as neatly as she could into Harry’s overnight bag, then helped him off the bed, guided him out of the room, and into the nearest lift. Once Emma had paid the bill, she asked the bellboy to hail her a taxi. He opened the back door and allowed the tired old man and his girlfriend to climb inside.
“Where to, miss?” asked the cabbie.
“Twenty-three Smith Square.”
* * *
During the journey back into London, Emma brought Har
ry up to date about what had been happening in the trial, Fisher’s death, and Giles’s preparations for the by-election, Virginia’s performance in the witness box, and the letter from Fisher that Mr. Trelford had received that morning.
“What did it say?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I even want to know.”
“But it might help you win the case.”
“That doesn’t seem likely if Fisher’s involved.”
“And I’ve only been away just over a week,” said Harry as the taxi drew up outside Giles’s home in Smith Square.
When the front door bell rang, Giles quickly answered it, to find his closest friend holding on to his sister with one hand, and the railing with the other, to make sure he didn’t fall over. His two new guards took an arm each and guided him into the house, past the dining room, and up the stairs to the guest bedroom on the first floor. He didn’t reply when Giles said, “Sleep well, old chum,” and closed the door behind him.
By the time Emma had undressed her husband and hung up his suit, she became painfully aware what the inside of a Russian prison cell must smell like, but he was already sound asleep by the time she pulled off his socks.
She crept into the bed beside him, and although she knew he couldn’t hear her, she whispered firmly, “The farthest east I will allow you to travel in future will be Cambridge.” She then switched on the bedside light and continued to read Uncle Joe. It was another hour before she finally discovered why the Russians had gone to such lengths to make sure that no one ever got their hands on the book.
Comrade Stalin’s seventieth birthday was celebrated across the Soviet empire, in a manner that would have impressed a Caesar. No one who hoped to live talked of his retirement. Young men feared early preferment because it often heralded early retirement and, as Stalin seemed determined to hold on to power, any suggestion of mortality meant your funeral, not his.
While I sat at the back of the endless meetings celebrating Stalin’s achievements, I began to form my own plans for a tiny slice of immortality. The publication of my unauthorized biography. But I would have to wait, possibly for years after Stalin’s death, for the right moment to present itself, before I approached a publisher, a brave publisher, who would be willing to consider taking on Uncle Joe.
Mightier Than the Sword Page 38